At the VLSI seminar held in Honolulu this week, Samsung first shared the details of the 7nm process based on EUV technology.
The application of EUV in the semiconductor field has been researched and developed for almost 30 years, and finally it is seen in the dawn of 2018. Samsung Says Risk Test Starts at the End of the Year Considering that the trial-to-risk production to final production will last for about a year, So at the end of the year and early next year, Exynos and Opteron chips will temporarily miss 7nm EUV.
Samsung had previously revealed that Cooperated with Qualcomm to improve 10nm 8nm , It is rumored that the first meeting was Xiaolong 730.
Going back to Samsung's 7nm EUV (extreme-ultraviolet lithography), it replaced the current 193nm ArF (argon) immersion lithography with a wavelength of 13.5nm in the ultraviolet range (wavelength range 10-400nm), making the transistor more precise.
Arf lithography machines ASML (Asmare) and Nikon can make, but the power of 250W EUV lithography machine, the world only ASML (Asmail) provided NXE-3400.
In terms of technical indicators, Samsung 7nm EUV grid spacing is 54nm, fin spacing is 27nm, the former is only Intel 10nm level.
Compared to the current 10nm LPP Xiaolong 845, Exynos 9810, Samsung 7nm EUV chip area will be reduced by 40%.
but, Samsung said that the performance of the new process transistor will be up to 20% higher than last year's first show, and the power consumption will be reduced by up to 50%.
In addition, the benefit of 7nm EUV is that there are fewer steps than multiple exposures, which means that the same amount of time will increase production. Of course, here is the most ideal situation, such as better EUV film to reduce mask pollution , Self-correction mechanism, etc. Samsung said that 7nm EUV will prove to be a more cost-effective solution if it is eventually completed.
Today, Samsung has produced a 7nm EUV based SRAM test chip with a capacity of 256Mb and a size of 0.0262 square microns. Samsung also revealed that Based on a 7nm quad-core CPU, 6-core GPUs can be functionalized.
On the other hand, TSMC claims that it has already put into production the first-generation 7nm CLN7FF, which has a 30% performance improvement and a 60% reduction in power consumption. However, EUV needs to wait until the CLN7FF+ is imported, so theoretically Apple A12 missed.
GF's 7nm LP specification has a 56nm gate pitch, a 30nm fin pitch, a 40% performance increase, and a 55% reduction in power consumption. It is expected to be used on AMD Zen2 processors.
